Group is linked to an invisible point i can't delete
You have 2-3 empty objects, objects which do not contain any vertices.



Out of those HotyDog_CH contains a shoe object which contains a HyperNURBS object which contains Cube1 which in turn contains the actual mesh data of your character:



Now first of all, maintain a clean workspace, delete the emptys, and generally check the outliner tab and check that there are no unwanted objects, also naming your objects will make your life easier.

Second is that you have some unapplied scales which will give you lots of headaches, so before deleting those empty containers or parenting to the armature apply your scale with ctrl+A.

After that you should be able to properly parent your mesh to your armature and begin skinning. Be sure to first select your mesh, then your armature and then press ctrl+P.

Off topic:

• check your hand rigging, as it has some faulty and missing connections.

• you have unmerged vertice data, this will cause shading artifacts, enter edit mode and remove doubles  W  -> Remove Doubles.